The Faerie Isles
While the Danaans lived as much on the continent of Ceilar as on the once solitary Faerie Isle, the archipelago of the Faerie Isles is perhaps the most well known home of that oldest of civilizations. The Faerie Isles is a temperate forest in the middle of the sea speckled with mountains and small rivers. It is idyllic by most standards, full of music, art, and sylvan beauty. The Autumn Tree, an ancient oak in a perpetual autumnal state, stands on its own island, a lone sentinel that has become the symbol of the islands and their people. The archipelago was once a single, large island inhabited by the Danaan race, ancient progenitors of the Sidh born before recorded history. Millennia ago, as the younger races of Tanicus began to spread across Ceilar, the primordial magics of the Danaans began to wane and they retreated wholly to their island home. Fearing that their immortality may be coming to an end, the Danaans began to magically manipulate their own development in an attempt to find a form more suitable for their survival in the changing world. The results of these experiments were the races of the Sidh. The Lwnasidh (LOO nah shee) were created to maintain the islands lands and cities. The diminutive Grynsidh (GREEN shee) would be the tenders of the forests. And finally, the Danaans created the aquatic Quasidh (KWAH shee) to be the curators and guardians of the seas. The Danaans only "failure" involved the natural birth of an albino subrace sensitive to light among the Lwnasidh. This race, the Bahnsidh (now called the Saoirsidh), was cast out by their creators. They fled from the exterior of the island and sought shelter in the caves and tunnels of the deep dark beneath the surface. For centuries, the Danaans and their Sidh servants lived in peace with the younger races and with each other, even as the numbers of the true Danaans continued to fall. Then came the Lwnasidh conjurer Mallorian mac Dworddyan, who resented the attitude of superiority that he believed was rampant among the Danaans, and sought to liberate his people from their control... under his rule. Mallorian, with the assistance of his mate and co-conspirator Melaryss man Ullaryen, stole the Cask of Sear and brought it to the Danaan capital of Mydderil. Through magic and deception, the duo called upon the goddess Cymber and, with her help, opened the Cask. The conspirators, however, quickly found themselves the victims of the goddess' guile, and the energies released by the Hand of Kaos were not used for their ends but for those of their deceiver. As a consequence of Cymber's newest attempt to resurrect Kaos, demons and devils poured onto the island, resulting in a war between the forces of the lower planes and he armies of the gods' celestial host. The four years of terrible war that resulted from the primordial deity's release brought with them the destruction of Mydderil, the near extinction of the Danaans and Sidh, and the sundering of the Faerie Isle into the archipelago that it is today. In the aftermath of this Second Incursion of Kaos, the remaining Danaans left the material plane for Elysium, abandoning their Sidh descendents in the world of mortals. The Sidh, more personable than their ancestral creators, quickly began diplomatic efforts with the mainland and reasserted themselves as a valuable member of the allied races. And so they remained for over a thousand years until the archangel Az's war on the gods and the rise of the eidolons. Once again, the Faerie Isles found themselves at the center of a new Incursion of Kaos. The archipelago survived the war among the gods, but in the decades that followed, the majority of the Sidh on the mainland were called home to aid in the reconstruction and then... something happened. At some point in the century that followed, the island Sidh on the mainlands were recalled because of a "great emergency." The nature of that emergency remains a mystery to historians, but shortly after, the Faerie Isles apparently disappeared. Without warning, navigation to the island became fraught with difficulty... as if the archipelago was actively hiing from the world. Now, mystery has begun to shroud the islands as thickly as the strange navigational hazards that conceal their location. Category:Locations Category:Gazeteer